Summary
- The original vision for GTA: Vice City had far more complex police chases with more police car spawn points upping the ante for players.
- The GTA series' police are relentless in pursuit with players sharing their favorite spawn point moments in Vice City and San Andreas.
- GTA 6, returning to Vice City after 20 years, could feature the most challenging chases yet with evolving gameplay features.
One of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's developers have revealed how originally the game's Wanted system was going to be far more complex, making the car chases the series is known for even more challenging for players. While the Grand Theft Auto series moved into the 3D space with its predecessor, GTA 3 in 2001, many fans have agreed that it was Vice City that truly set the tone for the games to come with its pop-culture-inspired story and memorable characters at the forefront.
When responding to a question posed on X, about how the police car spawn system worked in GTA: Vice City, Rockstar's former technical director, Obbe Vermeij stated that originally there was a plan to have far more pre-set spawn points designed to intercept players mid-chase. Vermeij experimented with pre-set locations where police cars would spawn just at the right time and with the correct initial speed to appear right in front of the player, rather than the normal chase mechanic where they spawn some distance away and are given an order to attack a player.
Unfortunately, Vermeij determined that these were "too much hassle to set up" so there are only five or so across Vice City, which trigger every few minutes after reaching a Wanted level of 3 stars or above.
One GTA 6 New Feature Would Go A Long Way To Improving Immersion
GTA 6 players seek one missing feature for immersion, but technical challenges, processing power, and gameplay balance complicate implementation.
GTA's Police Chases Have Evolved Over The Years
The Police In GTA Are Known For Being Relentless
The Grand Theft Auto games have evolved over the years with new technical enhancements offering larger cities to explore, and therefore, longer car chases. It's always been noted that the series' police have been relentless in their pursuit of players, with many videos being shown of GTA 5's law enforcement taking down other vehicles by any means necessary, be this ramming into them or setting up entire roadblocks.
The spawn points mentioned by Vermeij in GTA: Vice City were also present in its successor, GTA: San Andreas, and as many players have shown in clips below the developer's explanation, resulted in some intense moments during car chases. In the case of both games, police cars can be seen flying off rooftops, with a clip from SaacK_12 showing one scenario in Vice City that Vermeij theorizes is because the artists placed a building over an area he'd already put a spawn point in. Another clip from GTA: San Andreas, posted by yugecin26, shows a police car flying off a rooftop to hit a player in a helicopter, which makes a bit more sense in the game's world, even if it surely did mean a certain demise for the police in it.
Considering how challenging some of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's car chases could be anyway, the addition of even more police spawn points would have made it nearly impossible to escape. With each game building upon what came before, the Grand Theft Auto 6 - which returns to Vice City for the first time in the franchise in nearly 20 years - should have some of the best chases yet.
Sources: Obbe Vermeij/X SaacK_12/X yugecin26/X
